Rio tourist beaches threatened by oil slick

Source: AFP | Published: Monday January 24, 8:52 AM

Rio De JANEIRO, Jan 23 - A huge oil slick was advancing toward some of Rio De Janeiro's fabled tourist beaches today, six days after 1,300 tonnes - 9,000 barrels - of oil escaped into Guanabara Bay from a state-owned refinery.

"The pollution could reach the Flamengo and Botafogo beaches," said Professor David Zee of the department of oceanography at Rio's Federal University.

Henri Philippe Reichstul, president of Petrobras, owner of the leaky refinery, said floating isolation barriers would be installed tomorrow to prevent the slick from fouling the Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon beaches.

"We must avoid that at all costs," he said, adding that the slick had broken down into small, rapidly spreading units.

Petrobras has only 2km of isolation floats but was expecting an additional 3kilometres from the United States late yesterday. The company also has sought the help of a British firm, Oil Spill Emergency Response, specialists in dealing with North Sea spills.

Fernando Gabeira, a Green party federal deputy, said a project to clean up Rio Bay was in jeopardy.

"It is the biggest ecological project in Brazil, launched at the Rio earth summit in 1992," he said. "Now we risk losing our international financing."

The Petrobras president yesterday sacked the company's two environmental directors and took charge of the department himself. He also pledged to increase investment in environmental protection measures.

http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/0001/24/A42410-2000Jan24.shtml

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 23, 2000